Put Nissan Motor Co. at the head of that list. Nissan has a lot of chips riding on electric vehicles. About the same time Chevrolet launched the Chevy Volt, at the tail end of 2010, Nissan launched the battery powered Nissan Leaf.

The Nissan Leaf is the first mass-market electric car, and it's key to Nissan's ongoing campaign to be seen as a technological innovator. It uses battery power exclusively. The Chevy Volt has both battery power and a gasoline engine, which greatly extends the car's range, generating electricity when the battery runs low. Like the Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Volt can also be recharged by plugging it into an electrical outlet.

What they have in common are rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, similar in concept to the ones in laptop computers, only bigger. So do the electric vehicles and gasoline electric hybrids for every other automaker, either on sale now or in the product pipeline.

That includes Ford Motor Co., the Chrysler Group, Toyota Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co., not to mention luxury automakers like BMW AG and Daimler. Lithium-ion batteries are a key breakthrough that make electric vehicles far more practical in terms of operating range. Therefore, it’s not just Chevy’s problem if the public starts associating the terms, “lithium-ion batteries,” “electric vehicle,” and “fire.”

Nissan says its battery layout is especially safe, including a frame around the battery and a robust steel case around the battery itself. Nissan said through a spokesman it's not aware of any crashes or crash-testing that resulted in a fire.

Nevertheless, Nissan is vulnerable in another way if demand for electric vehicles softens, because Nissan is building a dedicated factory in Tennessee to produce a much higher volume of the Nissan Leaf, starting in 2012. Through November, Nissan Leaf sales in the United States were 8,720, according to AutoData Corp. After the new plant is up and fully running, Nissan is looking for annual sales of around 150,000.

Contrast that with Ford, which is building electric vehicles that are basically battery powered versions of conventionally powered cars. For instance, the Ford Focus Electric can be built on the same assembly line as other cars. Unlike Nissan, if demand for EVs tanks, Ford isn’t stuck with a white elephant factory that can't easily switch to building something else.

The background on the current Chevy Volt situation is that in a very few instances, fires broke out days or even weeks after the NHTSA crash-tested the Chevy Volt and its battery pack, in crashes severe enough to damage the battery. A NHTSA investigation is ongoing. NHTSA says it is not aware of any such fires occurring in real-world crashes.

GM insists the Chevy Volt is safe to drive. "The Volt is our pride and joy, and we will do all we can to make sure owners are as proud of it as we are," said Mark Reuss, president, GM North America, in a Nov. 28 conference call.

As a short-term fix, GM announced it would provide free loaner cars for Chevy Volt owners. GM is also offering to train emergency workers to drain the stored electricity from the battery as a precaution, following a crash involving a Chevy Volt.